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Linguistics 1-5

SECTON 1 - LINGUISTICS - GRAMMAR - PHILOLOGY  WHAT IS LINGUISTICS? / BY ANDREW CARSTAIRS-MCCARTHY Linguistics = is the study of language, in all its amazing diversity. It is the study of the human attribute that chiefly distinguishes us from other animals.  - There are about 7000 languages spoken in the world, some are dying out rapidly. - A linguist may study:  1. How language is processed by the brain,  2. How it is produced by the vocal apparatus,  3. Or (in the case of Deaf sign language) by gesture  4. How it functions in society, as a reflection of social class, age, gender or ethnicity,  5. How and why languages change  6. How our theoretical understanding of language can be applied in a range of practical areas such as language teaching and helping people with communication disorders.   - Language resembles facial expression. We all express smile, laugh, fear, amazement, joy, sadness and disgust in our faces.  > Smile means the same thing everywhere /sign of friendliness/   - In syntax (the grammar of words and phrases within the sentence), languages can achieve similar ends with quite different means,  - In Semantics (or linguistic meaning), superficial differences can mask deeper resemblance,  - In Morphology (the grammar of complex words), systematic patterns of meaning do not always correspond to systematic patterns of shape.  

CVIČENIA:

1. Crystal defines linguistics as the scientific study of language, also called linguistic science. Widdowson defines linguistics as the name given to the discipline which studies human language. The purpose of linguistics is: - to explain language - to provide some explanations of the complexity of language by abstracting from what it seems to be of essential significance. - to provide models of language which reveal features which are not immediately apparent.

The underlying goal of linguistics is to try to discover the universals concerning the language. Linguistics is a social science that shares common ground with other social sciences such as psychology, anthropology, sociology and archaeology. It also may influence other disciplines such as communication studies, computer science, archaeology. Along with psychology, philosophy and computer science, linguistics is ultimately concerned with how the human brain functions. 2. Prescriptive grammar = grammarians’ attempt to prescribe what speakers’ grammatical rules should be, rather than what they are. Descriptive grammar = a linguist’s description or model of the mental grammar, the units, structures, and rules of speakers of a particular language; an attempt to state what speakers unconsciously know about their language. Linguistics = from Latin lingua /languages/ - study of languages. Universal grammar = the principles or properties which pertain to the grammars of all human languages. Grammar = everything known about language, including its phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and lexicon. Philology = from Greek filein /to love/, logos. A word, speech - study of a language but only in its written form, it studies language texts. Its subject of study is the language and its literature - so we can distinguish Slovak philology, English philology, Hungarian philology, etc. - What are the basic questions of linguistics? = What is language + differences. - Linguists are engaged in multiplicity of studies, such as = study of phonetics, psychology,.. TRUE / FALSE: 1. Linguistics deals with spoken language only. FALSE 2. Linguists are interpreters. FALSE 3. Linguists are not concerned with the prescriptive rules of a language. TRUE 4. Linguists try to place language universals in a theoretical framework that will describe all languages. TRUE 5. Linguists focus on describing and explaining language. TRUE Individual fields and levels of language. + Disciplines which are also included in study of language. SECTON 2 - SOURCES AND PROPERTIES OF HUMAN LANGUAGE THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE / OTTO JESPERSEN (1921) - Jespersen’s proposal that human language originated while humans were actually enjoying themselves is one of the more endearing speculations concerning the origins of language. It remains, however, a speculation. We simply do not know how language originated. - The divine source = According to one view, God created Adam and every living creature, that was the name there-of. Alternatively, following a Hindu tradition, language came from thee goddess Sarasvati, wife of Brahma, creator of the universe. - In most religions, there appears to be a divine source who provides humans with language In an attempt to rediscover this original, divine language. - A few experiments have been carried out with conflicting results. > If infants were allowed to grow up without hearing any language, then they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language. - An Egyptian pharaoh tried the experiment with two newborn 600 BC. In the company of goats snd a mute shepherd, the children uttered, not an Egyptian, but something reported as Phrygian (original language - unlikely) word bekos, meaning bread. > they heard what the goats were saying (remove the -kos - like goats). - Another experiment by James IV of Scotland > children reported to have started speaking Hebrew. - Children living without access to human speech grow up with no language at all. - The natural-sound source = Based on the concept of natural sounds. - Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds. - The fact that all modern languages have some words with pronunciations which seems to echo naturally occurring sounds could be used to support this theory. - In English we have > bang, splash, rattle, buzz > bow-wow theory of language origin. (Onomatopoeic - echoing natural sounds). - Also suggested that the original sounds came from natural cries of emotion (pain, anger or joy). Such as ouch, ah!, hey!, Wow!, Yuck!. - Yo-heave-ho Theory = the sounds of a person involved in physical effort > grunts, groans and swear words. - The oral-gesture source = Suggestion which involves a link between physical gesture and orally produced sounds. - This theory, however proposes an extremely specific connection between physical and oral gesture. - Glossogenetics = Different level of speculation on the origins of human speech comes under the general heading of glossogenetics. - Focuses mainly on the biological basis - Physiological adaption = Human teeth are upright > they are extremely helpful in making sounds such as l, v and th. Human lips > flexibility, helps with sounds like p, b and w. The human mouth > small, can be opened and closed rapidly, contains flexible tongue > can shape variety of sounds. - The human larynx, or the 'voice box’, differs in position from monkeys. In the course of human physical development, the assumption of an upright posture moved the head forward and the larynx lower. > created longer cavity, called the pharynx, above the vocal cords, which can act as a resonator for any sounds produced via the larynx. - Human brain is lateralized, it has specialized functions in each of the two hemispheres. - Human may have first developed the naming ability, producing a specific noise (e.g. bEEr) for a specific object. Then to bring another specific noise (gOOd) into combination with the first to build a complex message (bEEr gOOd). CVIČENIA: 1. PROPERTIES OF HUMAN LANGUAGE a) DUALITY = Language is organized at two levels simultaneously. (meaning and sound level) b) CULTURAL TRANSMISSION = Language is passed on from one generation to the next. c) DISPLACEMENT = Human language-users are perfectly capable of producing messages referring to past and future time, and to other locations. d) ARBITRARINESS = There is no ‘natural' connection between a linguistic form and its meaning e) DISCRETENESS = Each sound in the language is treated as discrete. f) PRODUCTIVITY = The potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite. 2. Answer the following: a) Name the theories explaining the origin of human language. - bow-wow theory b) Give an example of onomatopoetic words in the English language. - splash, bang, boom, buzz c) Find any examples supporting the pooh-pooh theory and yo-have-ho theory. - grunts, swear words, groans used when lifting and arguing. d) What is the term used to describe the ability of human language-users to discuss topics which are remote in space and time? - displacement. e) What is the term used to describe the fact that, in a language, we can have different meanings for the three words tack, act, cat, yet in each case use the same basic set of sounds? - discreteness 3. Answer the following questions: a) What is an ONOMATOPOEIC word? - Sound produced by animals., A word that imitates a natural sound. b) Are ONOMATOPOEIA universals? - No. We hear sounds from the perspective of our language. c) Is the theory that language originated from attempts to imitate sounds of nature wrong? Why? - Yes, it is. We hear sounds from the perspective of our language. d) Which religion believes that Adam created language? - Judeo-Christianity e) Which religion believes that a woman created language? - Hinduism. Size symbolism. E - big, I - small - Unilateral theory of linguistic sign - Bilateral theory - Harchys ???? model of linguistic sign SECTON 3 - LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM OF SIGNS AND ITS STRUCTURE WHAT IS A SIGN? - 3 kinds of interest > primary interest in it for itself > secondary interest on account of its reactions with other things > third, mediatory interest in it, in so far as it conveys to a mind an idea about a thing — In so far as it does this^, it is a sign, or representation. - 3 kinds of signs > likeness or icons = serve to convey ideas of the things they represent by imitating them. > indicators or indices = show something about things, on account of their being physically connected with them. Example: guidepost /points down the road to be taken/, vocative exclamation as ‘’Hi! there,’’ /forces attention on the addressed person/ > symbols or general signs = associated with their meanings by usage. Such are most words, phrases, speeches, books or libraries. [ex. symbol - tree]

VARIOUS USES OF THESE 3 KINDS OF SIGNS 1. Likenesses. /instantaneous photographs/ they belong to the second class of signs > by physical connection. In intercommunication likenesses are quite indispensable. /two men w no common speech thrown together, they have to communicate, by imitative sounds, gestures and pictures. These are three kinds of likenesses/. Describing the qualities of the things and actions. The Egyptian language was the earliest to be written, all in pictures. Some stand for sounds, letters, syllables or ideas. 2. Indications - Anything which focuses the attention is an indication, or which startles us. Anything serving to indicate or point out, as a sign or token. 3. Symbols - greeks used to ''throw together’' very frequently to signify the making of a contract or convention. Could be any ordinary word, as give, bird, marriage is an example of a symbol. It is applicable to whatever may be found to realize the idea connected with the word, it does not, in itself, identify those things. We are able to imagine those things, and have associated the word with them. A regular progression of one, two, three may be remarked in the three orders of signs, Likeness, Index, Symbol. >The likeness has no dynamical connection with the object it represents, it resemble those of that object. It stays unconnected with them. >The Index is physically connected with its object, they make an organic pair. >The symbol is connected with its object by virtue of the idea of the symbol-using mind, without which no such connection would exist. COMPONENTS AND DIMENSIONS OF A LINGUISTIC SIGN - Already in the antiquity > Wide stream of thought about the nature of a linguistic sign started, and it was oriented above all on defining the basic components of a linguistic sign and its dimensions by which it is incorporated into the extralinguistic reality and with its user. - Pierce was the first to point out the three aspects of the sign; the aspect of its nature, the aspect of the object and the aspect of its user. Aspect of the nature of a sign (Zeichenaspekt) = Pierce differentiates qualisign, sinsign and legisign. Pierce’s triad of icon, index and symbol = much larger, expressing the relationship to the objective reality (Objektaspekt); with the icon a certain similarity with the object is presupposed, index is not a reflection but rather a reference to the object; symbol is fully independent of the object. - Relationship of the sign to the object, and its dependence or independence have been present in all the philosophical literature dealing with the sign. Pierce’s triad rheme, dicent and argument = reflecting the logical notions term, proposition and argument, did not arouse so much attention. The attempt of Bense > remained without response. - Pierce did not devote special attention to the inner components of the linguistic sign. - Disucussions about linguistic sign start with de Saussure (1916), went into two directions: some researchers investigated the linguistic sign as a component of the system, others as a component of linguistic communication. - Followed the distinguishing of the bilateral and unilateral character of the linguistic sign. MORRIS’S THEORY - The communication attitude to the sign in general and to the linguistic sign. - Directed the attention to the question what signs and what values must a human being master for being able to act. - aspect, nature, object, user Basis of the unilateralistic theory of linguistic sign = a sequence of signs bound to a certain communicated or communicable content. In contemporary linguistics this idea is developed and enriched by Solncev and Panfilov. CMOREJ (1985) - Attempt at explaining the linguistic sign from the point of view of formal logics. - Bases his analysis that the term ‘'denote'' has several meanings - Complicates it by considering this term with expression ‘'to represent’’, saying that sign is something that represents, denotes something else - Physical (acoustic, graphical) or Abstract object formed according to the rules of some language - On the other hand, any ideal element of the abstract system - Dualistic conception —> There exist two signs one of which is the realization of the other one (in a certain situation it actually represents it) and the other one is the representation of the first one. > exist both acoustic and ideal linguistic signs. - Cmorej later gave this idea up, and considers only the features of that sign which as unilateral entity represents only the denoting objects and phenomena but does not represent what these phenomena denote. - He arrives by analyzing the inner structure based on the literal, formal understanding of the term denoting sign or signifiant. - Signifiant /form/ and the signifié (meaning of concept) SAUSSURE’S THESIS > linguistic sign is a bilateral unit one component of which is formed by the notional aspect.

- Arbitrariness and nonmotivaredness is presented by Conrad. > Comes to the conclusion that arbitrariness can be understood in 4 ways: non-motivatedness, non-naturalness, non-causality and non-indispensability.

>> ARBITRARINESSS = The relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, i.e. there is no direct connection between the shape and the concept. The letters C-A-T produce exactly the image of the small, domesticated animal with fur, four legs and a tail in our minds. It is a result of convention: speakers of the same language group have agreed (and learned) that these letters or sounds evoke a certain image. - absence of intrinsic relation between communication element (speech sound) and a referent; (no connection between the form and the meaning of language signs) – e.g. there is no relation between the name book and the named object, the same object can be called kniha in Slovak - The possibility to stand not only instead of the objects in the real world (the semantic relationship), but also instead of the ideal objects expressed by the language (the sigmatic relationship).

ONOMATOLOGICAL AND ONOMASIOLOGICAL STRUCTURES (Horecký 1980) = very distinctly structured form, can schematically be represented in the following way; objective reality (everything around us ex. table). - incorrect to understand the relationship between what is denoting and what is denoted - The linguistic sign as a whole, also the joining of the denoting and denoted component, is a result of creative human activity exerted for building the language as a system of elements and rules suitable for creating texts. Neumann refers to this joining as the third component of the linguistic sign, the so called prescription rule. > pragmatic dimension

- A bilateral linguistic sign both components of which are structured, is an ideal object existing in language as a system serving not only for communication but also for denoting real objects, as well as for denoting thought values or in a wider context cultural values of mankind, and for storing them. - Communication linguistic sign is formed by the sequences of sounds, while its denoted component is represented by ideal systemic linguistic signs: Communication > Sound Sequence. Linguistic Sign > Systematic linguistic sign. - Nominative signs which we could compare to our systemic signs, create in each language a certain storage into which the communication partners reach within the communication acts, while utterances or assertations or the predicative signs joined to them do not form such a storage, they are construed or produced within each communication act according to the particular situation. - The systemic linguistic sign can be carried out by a non-derived word, a derived word, compound word or also by a polylexical naming unit. - Linguistic sign is not equal to a word. - The meaning of the word, is not an element from the area of semiotics, but from the area of semantics, or lexicology and lexicography. There is no point in speaking about the meaning or the meanings of the linguistic sign, including both the systemic and the communicative signs. - A linguistic sign is above all an ideal object the role of which is to stand for the objects in the real world, but also for other objects within their being stored in the social consciousness of the particular linguistic community. Ideal ling. signs are selected and with the help of communicative ling signs are transferred to the recipient, the concrete utterances having a sign character — they stand instead of certain situations, but they are not ling. Signs within the suggested conception.

CVIČENIA: 2. Name and explain three features of Saussurean > linguistic sign. Concept (more abstract) arbitrariness, discontinuity, linearity 3. DESIGNATION = the relation between the meaning of a sign and the referent DENOTATION = the relation between the form of a sign and the referent SIGNIFICATION = the relation between the form and the meaning of a sign 4. Language - a general universal human ability to use human language. Langue - a system of all rules that must be observed by all speakers of the community; it is an abstract system of conventional rules that are generally recognized by all speakers of the particular language, a property of society, a social phenomenon. Parole - an individual phenomenon, a concrete manifestation of language, uttered by an individual in a given moment.

5. Explain the relationship > language — parole. - Language develops using the parole 6. How many concepts of a linguistic sign can you name? compare them. - Morris, linearity, bilateral, icon, symbol, index

SECTON 4 - FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE The ADDRESSER sends a MESSAGE to the ADDRESSEE. To be operative the message requires a CONTEXT referred to (the ‘'referent'' in another, somewhat ambiguous, nomenclature), graspable by the addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalized; a CODE fully, or at least partially, common to the addresser and addressee (or in other words, to the encoder and decoder of the message); and, finally a CONTACT, a physical channel and psychological connection between the addresser and the addressee, enabling both of them to enter and stay in communication.

- Each of these 6 factors determines a diff function of language. - The verbal structure of a message depends primarily on the predominant function. - The so-called EMOTIVE or expressive function, focused on the addresser, aims a direct expression of the speaker’s attitude toward what is he speaking about. - But in the latter pair the differential information is in phonemic and in the former emotive.

- Orientation toward the addressee, the CONATIVE function, finds its purest grammatical expression in the vocative and imperative, which syntactically, morphologically, and often even phonemically deviate from other nominal and verbal categories. - Traditional model of language was confined to these three functions — emotive, conative, and referential - and the three apexes of this model - the first person of the addresser, the second of the addressee, and the third properly /someone or something spoken of). - We observe, however, three further constitutive factors of verbal communication and three corresponding functions of language. - There are messages primarily serving to establish, to prolong, or to discontinue communication, to check whether the channel works, to attract the attention of the interlocutor or to confirm his continued attention or in Shakespearean diction. > This PHATIC function may be displayed by a profuse exchange of ritualized formulas. - A distinction has been made in modern logic between two levels of language: ''object language’' speaking of objects and ‘’metalanguage'' speaking of language. - The set toward the message as such, focus on the message for its own sake, is the POETIC function of language. Cannot be productively studied. - Scheme of the fundamental factors with a corresponding scheme of the functions. CVIČENIA: 3. Following examples illustrate Jakobson’s functions of language. Match the examples with the respective functions they exemplify. a) Daniel Cleaver’s message for Bridget Jones — Conative Function b) Weather forecast — Referential Function c) I am smart, funny, outgoing,..etc. yahoo personals — Emotive Function 4. Try to find any connections between Chomsky’s conception of > competence and > performance and language functions. South abstract (competence), competence in use and realization action (performance) SECTON 5 - LANGUAGE LEVELS - TAXONOMIC /classificatory linguistics/ - discovering what the elements are. The study of the elements of language and their function is usually split up into a number of different subfields. 1. Phonetics deals with the sounds of spoken language: how they are made, how they are classified, how they are combined with each other, interact, perceived. The label linguistic phonetics is sometimes used to specify that part of phonetics which is directly relevant for the study of human languages. 2. Phonology also deals with speech sounds, but at a rather more abstract level. While phonetics deals with individual speech sounds, phonology deals with the systems which incorporate the sounds. It also considers the structures the sounds can enter into (ex. Syllables and intonational phrases), and the generalisation that can be made about sound structures in individual languages or across languages. 3. Morphology deals with the internal structure of words - not with their structure in terms of the sounds that make them up, but their structure where form and meaning seem inextricably entwined. Morphology deals with words and their meaningful parts. 4. Syntax is currently often seen as the core of any language, although such a prioritizing of syntax is relatively new. Syntax is concerned with the ways in which words can be organized into sentences and the ways in which sentences are understood. 5. Semantics deals with the meaning of language. This is divided into two parts, lexical semantics, which is concerned with the relationship between words, and sentence semantics, which is concerned with the way in which the meanings of sentences can be built up from the meanings of their constituent words. Sentence semantics often makes use of the tools and notions developed by philosophers; for example, logical notation and notions of implication and denotation. 6. Pragmatics deals with the way the meaning of an utterance may be influenced by its speakers or hearers interpret it in context. It also deals with matters such as what the difference is between a set of isolated sentences and a text, how a word like this is interpreted in context, and how a conversation is managed so that the participants feel comfortable with the interaction. 7. Lexicology deals with the established words of a language and the fixed expressions whose meanings cannot be derived from their components; idioms, clichés, proverbs, etc. Lexicology is sometimes dealt with as part of semantics, since in both cases word-like objects are studied. In principle, any one of these levels of linguistic analysis can be studied in a number or different ways. - Studied as facets of a particular language, or across languages, looking for generalizations which apply ideally to all languages, but more often to a large section of languages. The latter type of study is usually called the study of language universals, or language typology if the focus is on particular patterns of recurrence of features across languages. - Studied as they exist at some particular time in history or studied looking at the way the patterns change and develop over time. The first approach is called synchronic approach, the second the diachronic or historical approach. - Studied with the aim of giving a description of the system of a particular language or set of languages, or with the aim of developing a theory of how languages are most efficiently described or how languages are produced by speakers. The first of these is called descriptive linguistics, the second is called theoretical linguistics. - Can be treated as isolated systems, or as systems with built-in variability, which can be exploited by the language user to mark in-group versus out-group, or to show power relations, things as diverse as different styles and personality traits of the speaker. The latter types are dealt with as part of sociolinguistics, including matters such as dialectology. - Study these topics as they present in the adult human, or study the way they develop in children, in which case we will study language acquisition. We can take the ontogenetic point of view, or phylogenetic, consider the way each has developed for the species. - Studied as formal systems, in terms of how the use to which language is put in communication and the cognitive functions of the human mind shape the way in which language works. This is the difference between formal and functional approaches to language. PHONETICS - looking at the detail of how sounds are pronounced. Two words which are different by only one sound are called a minimal pair. /bitter and bigger/ What we are calling sounds are known as phonemes and what we have called pronunciations are known as allophones. PHONOLOGY - Is the study of sounds within a particular language and how those sounds function within that language. English - 44 sounds. Maximum of three consonant sounds together (two or more consonant sounds together are called a consonant cluster). Phonetics and phonology are two branches of linguistics that deal primarily with the structure of human language sounds. Phonetics focuses on the physical manifestations of speech sounds and on theories of speech production and perception. Phonology is concerned with the systems of rules that determine how the sounds of a language combine and influence one another. CVIČENIA: 1. Transcribe the following words: stream - striːm thistle - ˈθɪsl isle - aɪl hierarchy - ˈhaɪərɑːki literature - ˈlɪtərɪʧə usually - ˈjuːʒʊəli achieved - əˈʧiːvd mother - ˈmʌðə production - prəˈdʌkʃən 2. Explain the differences between the graphic and the spoken form of a language. Graphic > ideal and spoken > individual 3. Try to explain the mutual relationship: orthoepy — pronunciation — phonetics — phonology correct pronunciation — where we say things — individual speak sounds — abstract 4. Which of the following is true? a) Phonetics is the study of pronunciation. FALSE - of sounds and how they are made b) Phonetics is the scientific study of the sounds of language. FALSE - speech sounds c) Phonology is the study of how speech sounds are made, transmitted and received. FALSE - phonetics d) Phonetics is the scientific study of the sounds of speech. TRUE e) Phonology is the study of the function, behavior and organization of speech sounds as linguistic items. TRUE 5. Which pair of words is a minimal pair? a) PILL - BILL b) MINK - SINK c) SPEAK - FEET d) TAN - PAN e) MEET - FEAT 6. Every language has a sound structure which can be divided into two levels: the phonetic level and the phonological level. The inventory of all the perceptibly different sounds of a language is a phonetic inventory. The inventory of all the contrasting sounds of a language is a phonemic inventory. Only the sound differences can cause a difference in meaning. A phoneme is not a sound, but a family / class of sounds. Members of the same phonemic class are called allophones. Allophones of the same phoneme do not contrast in the same environment.

The Organon model, formulated by Karl Bühler, defined the communication functions according to which linguistic communication can be described. Bühler's work influenced Roman Jakobson for his Communication Model.

Bühler identified the following three communicative functions:

the Expressive Function (Ausdrucksfunktion)

the Representation Function (Darstellungsfunktion)

the Conative Function (Appellfunktion, i.e. appealing function).

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